


Even the Walls Fall

by Ambrosia



Series: Familiars are Surprisingly Useful [1]
Category: Maleficent (2014), Sleeping Beauty (Fairy Tale)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-01
Updated: 2014-06-01
Packaged: 2018-01-27 21:44:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1723517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ambrosia/pseuds/Ambrosia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What about an owl?” Maleficent asked. </p><p>“Oh, no,” Diaval said, scrunching his features together. “You wouldn’t believe the things that owls get up to. No respect.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Even the Walls Fall

Aurora came running when all was silent and the torches had burnt out. Maleficent had done nothing more than crumple against the stone ramparts, trying not to irritate her very new wings more than they already were. 

Which was odd, in its own way. She’d lived almost as much of her life without wings as she had with them. Wings were supposed to be natural, but she could feel every twitch of a feather. 

“Godmother,” Aurora called, hurrying toward her. 

“Here, beastie,” Maleficent said. She tried not to think about Aurora’s father, three hundred feet below with all of his bones broken and his neck snapped. 

When Aurora was close enough, Maleficent saw she held little Diaval in her hands, somehow transformed back into his bird form. Perhaps he had exhausted himself so much that he’d turned back on his own. 

“He’s hurt,” Aurora said with a worried frown. “Not too badly, I don’t think, but there were a few columns that he knocked over.” 

And Maleficent, even though she was tired, even though she could still feel the iron burning the edge of her senses from within the castle, pulled what little strength she had left up from deep within her chest and cupped her hands around the raven. 

Because he was her first little beastie. 

Aurora watched closely as the gold light emanated from Maleficent’s hands, wrapping the tired little bird in the best healing magic she could muster for the moment. Diaval whirped in a tired way, but Maleficent could already feel his cuts and burns healing. 

Maleficent opened her hands so that Diaval could hop around in them, nudging his wings with his beak and tipping his head from left to right. He squawked at her with the tone that he used when he wanted to shift. 

Maleficent rolled her eyes, but she hefted him up in the air so he could hover, and with a flick of her finger, he sunk into his human form. 

And promptly clutched his side and fell on his ass. 

“Oh,” Diaval said. “I want to do that again.”

A small smile itched on one side of Maleficent’s mouth. “Perhaps,” she allowed. “But maybe we should when there’s a little less fire.”

His face was scorched and sooty, but Maleficent thought he looked rather better than she had expected. There were still angry red welts on her arms, but it was her wings that stung the most— nearly seventeen years of not having to use a muscle and then having to use them again stung like sixteen thousand angry wasps. 

But Diaval just smiled that smile of his like when he laughed with all the air in his lungs, like a crow. “But I liked being a dragon. It’s not so different from being a bird. A big bird.” 

He put his hand on Aurora’s shoulder and she laughed, a smile like sunlight. 

Maleficent’s hand went to the base of her wings that were spasming. She winced, hoping that they wouldn’t see. But Diaval, as always, did. “Mistress?”

Maleficent rubbed, but she tried for a small smile. “Next you’ll be asking me to turn you into something with fins, I’d imagine,” she said, trying to draw the attention away from her wings. “Or with webbed feet. How’d you feel about reptiles, Diaval?”

“You say that,” Diaval said. “But then who will help you clean all those nasty feathers.” 

He heaved himself off the stone to where he could more easily get up onto his human legs. Once he was standing, he went to Maleficent’s side and helped her up, too. He tucked his arms beneath her wings and tucked the rest of her to where she could lean on his shoulder. 

She didn’t so much limp as much as she struggled to find her center of balance, having been used to the absence of wings. But she appreciated that Diaval lent her his shoulder, because wings, wings were much heavier than she remembered. 

“Maybe not a lizard,” she mused aloud. “Maybe a beetle.”

“Why is it always slimey things,” Diaval asked in her ear. “Why not a rabbit, at least they are rather clean.”

Maleficent laughed softly. “As if you didn’t have enough problems with dogs already.” 

“True,” he managed, even though the going was slow. Any and all who saw them simply stopped dead and turned the other way, and the ones that didn’t were stopped by Aurora who seemed to struggle with the fact that she was now, presumably, in charge of the situation. For now. “A fox, then? It’s not quite a dog.” 

“What about an owl?” Maleficent asked. 

“Oh, no,” Diaval said, scrunching his features together. “You wouldn’t believe the things that owls get up to. No respect.”

Her wings spread out when they got to a place with enough space to do so, and it helped the irritation some. They were strong, she could already tell, strong enough to fly them out of here should they wish. 

But, Maleficent thought, turning towards Aurora ahead of them. No, they couldn’t return to the Moors. Not just yet. Not until Aurora said she would be alright with them leaving for a time. 

“Mistress?” Diaval asked. “Are you well?” 

Her wings stung, and they twitched irritably. She felt as if she could sleep in the tree on the cliff for a hundred years. But Stefan was gone, so her vengeance was done. It had been done before Stefan had died, but now there was nothing left for her to hate. 

“I believe so,” Maleficent said, though it hurt to move her shoulders too much. “I’ve been much worse, after all.” 

**Author's Note:**

> I was not expecting to ship this as much as I did oops.  
> [tumblr](http://www.valorious.tumblr.com)


End file.
